[nirvAnA]

Note: This is for Non-Diamond players. Diamond players may know most of this stuff, but theres alot of Non-Diamonds out that who will find this useful This is the partial version of the guide, with the complete "20 most common mistakes" expalined in the full version.

Common Mistakes Of Non-Diamond League Players:

Overview:

What makes some players better then others? Before explaining the common mistakes Non-Diamonds players make, ill explain some concepts to make it clearer. I believe a player's Starcraft game can be broken down into two specific skillsets, their Mechanic and their Strategic skillset. This section will help you identify common mechanical and strategic mistakes non-diamonds make and suggest exercises on how to improve them and increase your overall level of skill.

Part 1:

Mechanics Theory

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Mechanics in Starcraft terms is defined as the non strategic mechanical aspects of a player's game. It relates alot to unit production and macro, for instance, your ability to be making workers constantly throughout the game, keeping your resources low by constantly producing units, not being supply blocked etc. It can also refer to more detailed mechanics like constant larva injection with Queens, Creep Tumor Spreading and efficient chonoboosting.

This skillset is best developed through hours and hours of practise and over time you will naturally become good at them. However, if you can start doing simple exercises specificially aimed at developing your mechanics you can cut the time needed in half! Mechanical skill is based on getting used to the regular time intervals to perform the actions and efficiency - doing them the fastest/best way possible. Once you've mastered this skillset, it will be a part of your game in the background built into you like reflex actions. Like walking, riding a bicycle or performing a dance routine you already know. It may take some time and effort to learn but once you have its smooth sailing all the way.

Why do diamond players who play 1v1 also end up in diamond easily for 2v2,3v3 and 4v4? Why can good players use an off race and still do decent? This is because even if they have limited strategic knowledge in those game types, these diamond players already have well developed mechanical skills that make up for it. Mechanics is indeed a very important component of anyone's game.

3 Common Mechanical Mistakes:

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1. Not building enough workers.
Having a strong economy and production ability is a big part of the game. The more workers you have, the more money you mine, and therefore the bigger army you can produce. Many non-diamond players make workers at the start and then stop making workers entirely. This is really bad as you should be making workers constantly throughout the game to keep increasing your economy with the only exceptions being - 1) you're cutting workers to do a bo/tech/timing rush or 2) you're approaching 200pop and by that time u want to stop making workers so your army is bigger.

So if you're on one base with 8 mineral patches and 2 vespane gysers, you would ideally want somewhere between 16-24 workers on minerals, and 6 on gas and no more than 30 workers total. I personally like to have 24 workers on minerals so that when my expansion is finished i move half my workers over and its mining decently already.

+ [Mining Theory] +

The optimal worker saturation is 2 workers per mineral patch and anything after the 2nd worker is subject to diminishing returns, and will have less minerals mined per minute than the first 2 workers. 3 workers per mineral patch is the cap and any more workers will NOT increase your minerals per minute. So ideally you want 16-24 workers on your minerals assuming a standard 8 mineral patch base.

Exercise:
You have to get used to the timing of when the worker finshes, so you can go back to your base and start building one more. For Zerg players, drone timing will be covered more in the Zerg Section. For better efficiency, use hotkeys so you do not have to move your game screen back to your base. Hotkey your nexus/command center for e.g at "4" so when its about time to complete, press 4, start building another worker just before the current worker comes out. Practise doing this throughout the game. After an attack, while fending of a drop, etc. Make it a habit to press "4" and make your worker at regular intervals. And if you're about to engage in a battle that will require your full attention, que up 1-2 workers.

2. Not using hotkeys/shortcut keys.
What is a hotkey/shortcut key?

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A shortcut key is the letter your press to perform a spell / build a unit on your keboard quickly, without having to use the mouse. For e.g if you move your mouse over the "build probe" icon in your nexus, the shortcut key "E" will be displayed. Pressing "E" makes a probe. A hotkey is a key assigned to any unit/building or groups of units/buildings for quick recall. Press Crtl + 0-9 to assign a hotkey. For e.g clicking on your scouting probe and pressing Crtl + 2 assigns it to the number 2. Anytime time you press 2, the probe will be selected immediately and any time your press 2 twice quickly in succession, the screen will center to the probe.

This is probably one of the biggest mistakes of Non-Diamonds. Most people know hotkeys exists, but just don't use it, or don't them to their full potential. You should know all the shortcuts for the race you play. Why? Simply beacuse using two hands is alot faster than 1! Using your keyboard hand to click the shortcut key frees up your mouse hand to perform another action quickly. And efficiency is all about maximising what you can do in the best/fastest way possible. Once you learn to use hotkeys/shortcut keys efficiently, your mechanics will skyrocket!

Exercise:
Make yourself learn 2-3 new shortcut keys every game. Test yourself. What is the hotkey for Mules? Warp Gate Research? Hydralisks? Thermal Lance upgrade? If you use concious effort to learn new keys every game, it will only take a few days of playing before having mastered every single shortcut key of your race!

Practise incorporating hotkeys into your game. Start with Crtl + 1 and 2 for your army. Once you're comfortable with that start to hotkey your production buildings as well. Ideally you want to be using at least 5-6 hotkeys and just use a combination comfortable to you. i personally use the hotkeys 1-7 every game for all my races. 1-3 are units and 4-7 are different production buildings. Hotkeys make your game much faster and efficient and it also makes the game alot easier to play. Most importanly, remember to use them! For e.g BEFORE you engage in battle quickly build new units up(as you wont have time during the fight) use your hotkeys to select production buidlings, shortcut keys to build units. Then use your hotkeys to control your army into good positioning and get ready to use your shortcut keys for spells. Sounds like a long process but with these magical keys it just takes 2-3 seconds of game time.

3. Not Using Waypoints.
What are way points?

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Waypoints are a sequence of planned actions, made my shift clicking. E.g To move a scouting from point A to point B to point C - Click on a unit, right click to point A, then hold on to shift and right click on point B then point C. If done correctly, you won't have to do anything else and the unit will go to Point A, then Point B, then Point C by itself.

Waypoints greatly help speed up the mechnical aspect of your game by freeing your time up to do other tasks, while accomplishing the same purpose. Waypoints can be used to:

1) Making scouts stay alive - A good player can keep his scout alive in his opponents base while getting the best information possible. Use waypoints so you can continue to scout while building stuff back at your base. Good way points can also help scouts prevent zerg opponents from placing down their expansion hatcheries by blocking the building placement.

2) Make multiple buildings with a single worker. A new expansion with a probe and u want to make a row of cannons? Select the probe and click B, C then hold on to shift and make more cannons(press B then C again). So instead of waiting for your probe to make the buildings one by one etc, you can just use waypoints and your game management time will be freed up immensely.

3) Make multiple buildings with multiple workers. Lets say you have a ton of money and need to spend it so u decide to throw down 4 more gateways. How can u do this the fastest? This is done slightly different from above (and its faster too, since u use 4 probes not 1) as you are using 4 probes this time. Take 4 mining probes (it doesnt matter if u accidently select more than 4) then press B, G and make 4 gateways on the screen. Then hold on to shift and right click back to your minerals. The 4 probes will each go make a gateway and then go back to mining.

4) On rally points

+ [Example] +

In this situation i want my stalker to first come out from behind my wall in instead of infront of the zealot, and then go to the edge of the cliff. Shift rallying solves the problem.

5) Making stalkers blink up/down cliffs. Select your stalkers, right click a location near the cliff edge, hold on to shift and click blink and choose the target location below/above the cliff.

6)Focus firing queing up units in succession. A very useful skill in small skirmishes with ranged units. You want to maximise damage dealt and mimimize damage taken so use focus fire - select all your units to attack a single enemy unit then hold shift and atttack 2 other units nearby. After focus firing and killing the first unit, your units will all focus fire and kill the next unit. Doing this will free up time for you to be able to move away injured units that your opponent is attacking.

Exercise:
Start using the basic ones first for scouting and making buildings, make it a habit to have no idle workers sitting around. Once you have gotten used to them you can practise the more advanced ones like blinking stalkers down cliffs and shift focus firing on enemy units during battles.

Summary
Having crisp and efficient mechanics gives you a significant edge as it allows you to play faster and generate more units and bigger armies quicker than your less mechanically skilled opponents. Also, good mechanics with shift-que usage frees up time for you to focus on the more important actions when necessary. Lastly, mechanics is a skill that also transfers to other game types so if u go on to play 2v2s - 4v4s or even offraces with the good mechanics you have developed in 1v1 you already have a big edge over your less mechanically skilled opponents.

Part 2:

Strategic Theory

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Of course, apart from having good mechanics, it is essential to have a good understanding of the game. Do you find yourself losing the odd game here and there to a player you find to be much weaker than you? Do you have a ton of games but only a 50xish% win ratio? If you have a very good strategic understanding and strong fundamentals it will lead to solid play where you very rarely lose to weaker opponents. A good understanding will also develop in you a strong timing or game sense. You won't have to "mass" games so much as you will be able to earn points faster when you lose less. So how you develop understanding? All you have to do is set aside some time to study the game. Once you start playing by with the role of "understanding the game" in mind, you will see your win ratio soar. So first up you should master the basic unit counters, followed by the unit combination counters and lastly the BO(build order) counters. Once you have got that knowledge down, you will also need to know a few very important strategic rules which apply to almost every RTS game, which alot of players fail to use, such as "understanding your enemy" i.e constant and proper scouting, "not letting your enemy understand you" i.e information concealing -hidden techs/feinting attacks, metagame explaination, game sense/timing, having a game plan and judgement calls - not engaging in losing battles.

3 Common Strategical Mistakes:

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1.Game knowledge
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2. Not Scouting Enough
This is probably the #1 most important mistake which Non-Diamonds make, they simply do not scout enough. Starcraft is a game of imperfect information. If both players had all the right theoratical knowledge and equal mechanics, the thing that would decide the winner will be the player with the most complete information. The player with the better information will be able to make units that better counter his opponents so when they do engage he wins the battle and later on the game. It is always a good idea to sacrifice units for scouting, an overlord maybe cost 100 minerals but sacrificing to get an idea of what the 1base toss is doing can win you the game right there. Same concept applies for sacrificing worker units to scout to update yourself on the enemys army unit composition. Another important thing to do is also try and keep control the Xel Naga towers. You don't want to be caught by surpise with your units out of position. You want to be prepared for the attack with your units arranged in an arc or optimal positioning to do the most damage.

Exercise:
While playing ask yourself often... Do you know what army your opponent has? What tech is he going for? Has he expanded? If you don't you obviously have not been scouting enough. Do not play in the dark. Good scouting + Game game sense (the part you assume based on timings and your incompelte information) will allow you to play a perfect game. Make it a habit to also always try to control the Xel Naga Tower when possible. How much of your map is visible? You should always be able to see infront of your army as well, be it with Xel Naga towers, creep tumors, obs, or a lone marine/scv standing infront as a lookout. These are small sacrificies to make in exchange for total preparation and information that may win you the game.

3. Not retreating or engaging in a losing battle.
Alot of times, i see weaker players not ever running away an army they know would surely lose. Every battle is a fight to the death, which is really bad! The very best players never ever engage if they cannot win. Whenever i play GLaDe for instance, and when i just suprised him with a good unit combination and start to make a push - he does not make the mistake of fighting my army, which is a big mistake even alot of the top diamond players on ladder would make. Instead, he will do anything not to engage from running around in circles picking off units here and there to base trading till he can store time to make units that can better counter my army.

Exercise:
If you know you cannot possibly win, save your army, start producing units to better counter your opponents unit composition and look for a better opportunity later. You may have "lost" the battle by retreating but you haven't lost the war/game yet. If you engage now it will just be an auto-lose. If you recall one of the games between Mana and Namma from the Dreamhack 2010 Finals where Namma sieged up outside Manas base for a good 10 mins trying to deal the finishing blow. Mana picked off tanks here and there and showed infinite patience under pressure before finally moving out with his tech units only when he had a big enough force he knew he could win with. A great sign of a word class player.

Part 3:

The Correct Mindset

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Once you've mastered the mechanic and srategic skillsets, it also important to have the correct mindset. This is something which is going to be useful not just for Starcraft but for any game you play.

1 Common Mindset Mistake:

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1. The Mass game mentality.
This is a common mistake i see, where people feel the best way to improve is to constantly mass game after game. Players can lose like 7 games in a row and right after start searching again to try and "get their points back". This is really unhealthy for your game. My theory is people are generally lazy and just want to have fun ("its a game, i dont want to think i just want to enjoy playing it!") as it takes alot more effort to sit down and brainstorm solutions then it does to just play again and have fun. However, if your goal is to improve as a player, reflection and analysis is the fastest way to improve your understanding of the game.

Think of it this way, the more you win, the more fun it is right? So in the short run you have to think and reflect every now and then which you may find inconvenient but in the long run, you will end up winning more and the more you win the more fun you have. So ultimately it has 2 core benefits. Instead of mass gaming, set aside some time to think and not only will 1)Your understanding improve with every game, you will also 2) Have more fun playing the game because you win more

Exercise:
Whats far more important is taking a step back after a lost, and reflecting on your play and why you lost. Watch your own replays, look at decisions you could have done better , find out where your mistakes were, weed out unfeasible BOs, learn the timings of your opponents BO, etc. Did you lose because of bad mirco? bad macro? bad judgement? If you are having difficutly with a specific matchup download replays of top players and find out what they do. Do you handle situations the same way as them? Do you use a similar BO? Having constructive learning methods and testing yourself will ultimately improve your understanding and skill level.

[OxygeN]

Very well-written article, especially the mechanics theory part. it is true! Even people who are in 2K diamond have problem with their mechanics. Essentially, to reiterate bryan's point, playing more games is good, but play SMART. revise why you lost, and even why you won.

Think about your progress as a graph, with every game subjected to diminishing returns if you mass games, and when you review your games, and think about it, there are perpetual spikes in improvement!

[kellyMILKIES]

Wow great guide Bryan

[FlashDrakE]

Good guide.

[DsDxiaohao]

wow.. great stuff! ;D

[Dogsi]

... I'm diamond but I don't do 3/4 of that :-P

[nirvAnA]

dogsi i guess ure refering to the mechanics? you probably have vgood strategic knowledge / understanding of the game to make up for it : p

[Stroggos]

i disagree about the massgaming part. My mass gaming has enabled me to find more mistakes, and see many more strategies from my enemies so i can adapt my build against more builds that the enemy can do, it also allows me to progress through fixing many tiny mistakes in my game. On top of that, mass gaming allows you to see how popular certain build orders are...and you can gain sick game sense through mass gaming as well, being able to maphack your opponent because you've seen the same thing so much before.

[nirvAnA]

yea i mean mass gaming is good but if u took that mass gaming time as 100% and split it into gaming 60% + 40% lots of analysis/reflection/replay watching it will be heaps better that mass gaming imo

the ultimate combo = mass gaming + lots of thought

[luppin]

I found this guide very helpful. It is very concise and nicely spread out information on important areas. Even though I apply some of the stuff you mentioned above, It's always good to be reminded about the small things that are easily to overlook.

Just on a side note as well, does anyone know if there are any other guides online like the one posted above? I could really use some good advice and if you could send me the link address to any of them I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

[sunsetkid]

great guide. i learnt something new today. that newly built stalkers can have waypoints too!
some things may seem basic, but if you watch replays, you'd actually be surprised at the number of players who don't even hotkey.

and the fight-even-when-your-force-is-bound-to-die mentality exists everywhere. just play random 2v2s and see.

[Millionaire]

Great work there. Good article.

[Fate]

Hi Brian I found this post through an interview you did with gamespot asia, love the great work you are doing for the sc2 community in the region.
After reading your interview I realised that really many of us active sc2 players are really of the older age groups (20s and above), who are working and were fans of broodwar and able to afford the hefty $100 price tag for a copy of sc2 to start with.

I really agree that the future for our community lies in our ability to attract more players especially of the younger age group.
Immediate thoughts come to my mind about working with
distributers to promote their games at local LAN events,
computer shows etc and have them subsidise the price of sc2 to reach out to a wider audience

Other thoughts are linked through how dota and counter strike found popularity, through LAN shops which offer new gamers the ability to try out the game very cheaply and have fun with their friends, maybe by offering some free or subsidised hours of sc2 at our sc2 lan events, in order to start reaching out to young gamers who flinched at the $100 price tag just to try out the multiplayer of sc2

I do have more thoughts on such issues as well, if anyone's interested to contact me for a chat or messages I can be contacted at SEA sc2 server
Id/code: fate/882
Skype id: fate0025
Justin tv stream: www.justin.tv/fate025
Cheers everyone!